Making a Name for Ourselves: Babel

Genesis 11:4

"Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.'"

Genesis 1:28

"And God blessed them (Adam and Eve). And God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it..."

The people in Babel were much like us today. If you are much like me, you might read the story of the Tower of Babel, and wonder why God is against the people making this tower. It says in the following verse that God said, "And nothing they do will be impossible for them." Why is this such a bad thing? When we were in Sunday School as children, this story was told as if the tower itself was the people's way of trying to reach God, and so that is why God was against it. As adults, a quick survey of the text does not show this as the moral of the story at all. No, the people of Babel fell into the same trap that we do: making a name for themselves instead of God. Their purpose in building the tower was not to reach Heaven, but rather so that people would look on and ask, "Wow! Who built that!?" As the people of Babel would proudly say, "That was us!" The motive in their heart was to bring glory to themselves. We find in Jesus' teaching that all things that we do should bring glory to God. The people of Babel were not interested in bring glory to their Creator; they were too preoccupied with making a name for themselves. I wonder, dear Christian, if we spend our time making God's name great, or if we are simply going about making sure people know us. Are we always pointing to God for the good things in our lives, or are we quick to point out that we were the ones who did it? Back to Babel, on top of these selfish motives, the people of Babel were in direct disobedience to God's purpose for them: to disperse and fill the earth. Those that have read Job know well that God's purposes will be brought to pass. We may spend years building/wasting our lives the way we want them, but in the end, God will confuse our plans and we will be left only to follow after His purposes. My prayer is that this happens quickly; although, we know that all the years that are wasted, God is able to make up, if only we turn back to Him and quit pursuing our own desires and fixating on making ourselves a great name.